I spent a few hours last week trying to track down good statistics on SNS adoption for a chapter I was writing. The stats generally break down into one of three categories: 1) Self-reports from social network sites, 2) Localized studies (adoption at campus X) or 3) Population samples (Pew). The Pew Internet and American Life project has the best statistics around on youth adoption (12-18), but I couldn’t find a recent number that is a broader population sample.
Thankfully, Pew’s Research Center for People and the Press solved my problem with a report entitled “Internet’s Broader Role in Campaign 2008.” In this survey, social networking site use was explored, with the researchers finding that 22% of Americans use SNS. Broken down by age range, 67% of those age 18-29, 21% of those 30-39, and 6% of those 40+ use SNS. Based on 1430 respondents, margin of error should be about +/- 3%. This is a nice statistic for those who have been relying on self-reports and press accounts.
Update: To put these into “absolute” numbers, I’ve used the most recent census population estimates (11/07). Note, both the Pew statistics and census statistics are confidence samples, so the combined margin of error applies.
Statistical breakdown:
- US SNS users aged 12-14: 5,560,749* (45% of total population 12-14: 12,357,222)
- US SNS users aged 15-17: 8,331,631* (65% of total population 15-17: 13,018,174)
- US SNS users aged 18-29: 34,251,555* (67% of total population 18-29: 51,121,724)
- US SNS users aged 30-39: 8,599,930* (21% of total population 30-39: 40,952,050)
- US SNS users aged 40+: 8,235,988*,** (6% of total population 40+: 137,266,473)
- Total US SNS users (excluding ages less than 12): 64,979,853 (+/- ~4,000,000)
*Notes on Margin of Error: US Census standard 90%, Pew hasn’t released the statistical evaluation on the 2008 survey.
** This includes individuals aged 40-100. An appropriate methodology would oversample younger users in this range, likely reducing this total population.
Links to Pew Studies:
- Internet’s Broader Role in Campaign 2008. Kohut et. al. 2008.
- Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks. Lenhart and Madden. 2007.
Tags: pew, statistics, survey
Great Stats on Social Networking…thanks for digging up and sharing.
Isn’t The Pew Internet and American Life Project great?
They have provided some very valuable studies about ourselves and the Internet.
Curious what these numbers will do in 2008. I predict historic growth.
Thanks for picking that up – I overlooked that study as it wasn’t primarily SNS focused. Two notes – the survey was conducted in late December 07 – even more recently than I thought. And the question asked was “do you ever use online social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook” – this might overstate things a bit as people might answer yes if they had used one of these and had stopped.
There are some fairly recent stats from a commercial organization about UK adoption of various SNSes – chiefly about facebook – available here FYI:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/513941/The-Facebook-Faceoff-An-Empirical-Analysis-by-Human-Capital
@kin
Yes – Pew is seriously amazing, an invaluable resource. And they’re remarkably nice, too!
@david
No problem, and I agree. For Pew’s previous studies, they’ve read lists of what a SNS is, etc. The ambiguity itself creates methodological issues. For the US, that seems like a good way to go about the question, but you don’t know who is active, and it might leave out sites like LinkedIn that *feel* rather different from these youth-oriented SNS (though I would argue there is likely significant overlap between populations, though likely not within margin of error).
Thanks for the link to that study, I’ve bookmakred!